Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Dream On Little Chicken

Presumably, by the title, you can deduce that I've seen a few too many Wendy's commercials on this road trip. But you are not dreaming, the CBJ beat the high flying Dallas Stars tonight 4-2, playing an excellent road game. The CBJ came out flying, with Wiz scoring early, and Johansen potting a beauty on the power play. A great first 10 minutes on a road game (or a home game for that matter), and the CBJ took a 2 goal lead into the second period.

Then early in the second period, Kevin Connauton scored off a one timer set up with a bunny of a pass from Johansen, to make it 3-0. Then the parade to the penalty box started, and the Stars gathered momentum, scoring 2 goals to get to 3-2 by the end of the second period.

Dallas carried a lot of the play in the third period, but could not solve Bob. They kept cranking up the pressure, but over committed, and with less than 3 minutes remaining, Letestu and Wennberg played hot potato with the puck on a break away, with Letestu potting the goal to ice the game. The good guys win 4-2.

The good news on the injury front was Mark Letestu and Cam Atkinson returned to the lineup. It was noticeable. The win moves the CBJ above .500, which is a little crazy to think about given where this team was. But they are playing really well, with a great deal of determination. They need to keep doing that, as a 10 win January is necessary to duplicate the pace of from last year. Fortunately, our next game in the road trip is in Toronto, which should be pretty peaceful [sticks tongue in cheek].

In the current NHL schedule, we play Western Conference teams twice each season. If you split most of those games, you are at .500, and you need to win in your Division to make the playoffs. Dallas laid the wood to us in Nationwide Arena early in the year. Tonight we erased that loss. Time to move on.

Excellent road game by the Jackets tonight. A well deserved win. Well done! Last year we seemed to really struggle with teams that brought a lot of speed. We don't seem to be having quite as much trouble with that this year. That's a step forward, in spite of the rugged start. Good stuff.